This invention relates to milking apparatus and more particularly to a milking apparatus of the type utilizing teat cups.
Milking operations in dairy farming have been advanced from milking by hand to efficient milking with bucket milkers and then rapidly automated with the use of more efficient pipeline milkers. It follows therefore that one operator can handle to milk about 20 milch cows to improve the yield of milk but, on the other hand, disease of mastitis has been rapidly increased. This inconvenience is considered to be attributable to excessive seeking of efficiency which leads to failure to carefully manage individual cows. Especially, adverse affect of excessive milking is serious and devices for preventing excessive milking have been proposed.
One device to this end uses a flow meter inserted in a milk feeding pipe to raise vacuum degree and change the number of pulsations when the milk flow is decreased, so that stimulus to the teat can be mitigated. This device has succeeded in relieving appreciable anxiety about excessive milking by the milker but fails to discriminate completion of milking of any one of four teats because the flow rate of the sum of milk flows from the four teats is measured, with the result that some of the teats are sucked excessively. In addition, this device has a complicated construction and is increased in weight, thus impairing portability.
According to another proposed device, a vacuum circuit is closed when the milk flow is stopped to thereby remove the teat cup from the teat automatically. To prevent inadvertent dropping of the teat cup to the floor, however, this device disadvantageously requires a sophisticated unit for supporting the teat cup. Further, it happens that the teat cup may automatically be removed from the teat even when a large amount of milk still remain in the udder. Consequently, milk flow halt can not always coincide with the completion of milking, making it difficult to obtain matching therebetween.